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| "Interceptors, immediate launch." |
The aggressor who sets up the first interplanetary outpost on the moon (sic) can dominate not only the world but the entire solar system.That statement raised a few eyebrows on Jupiter.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Commander Stryker, call your service
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5 comments:
It's rather like the big argument between Quatermass and Col. Breen at the beginning of "Quatermass and the Pit". "The first nation to put a base on the Moon can police the Earth with nuclear missiles."
Never mind that trying to control a missile over that distance lays you open to jamming. Or that an inertial guidance system probably isn't accurate enough to do it in an unjammable manner. Or that it'll take two or three days for the missiles to get there, and what are the other guys getting up to in the interim?
Von Braun used a variant of this argument to justify his space station in "Across The Space Frontier". Overlooking the small detail that any aggressor with an ounce of sense is going to take out such an inviting target in Earth orbit first.
It's a beautiful (?) theory that is consistently murdered by the facts of orbital dynamics. Walter Hohmann would be proud.
cheers
eon
Spacecraft guidance systems can navigate by the stars; space probes have been using this method for decades. As for orbital platforms, kinetic bombardment from orbit (Project Thor) sounds like it can do some damage to stationary targets like cities. An advantage would be that once a swarm of projectiles is released into an orbit, there isn't much you can do to intercept it.
"once a swarm of projectiles is released into an orbit, there isn't much you can do to intercept it."
For instance, BBs, sand, small nails in the same orbit as the orbital platform...
just going in the opposite direction.
Hm, OK. I was thinking something small and simple, and maybe out in a very high orbit. Once such a platform releases its cargo of darts, there are no longer any questions. Only how long before the things fall on their target.
Anyway, we (US) aren't into missile defense any more, if you haven't heard. We traded it away for Putin's promise to continue to not have so many strategic nuclear weapons, and the right to own fewer strategic bombers. What can possibly go wrong?
Actually, the whole argument is moot because back in the '60s the boffins ran the numbers and discovered that a suborbital weapon does the job just as well as an orbital system only much quicker and for much less energy. Also, it's a lot easier to maintain weapons on the ground than in space and they're harder to track or attack. That's why the West bases its deterrent force on submarines.
The first real space weapon will probably be a Rods From God system fired from a modified Trident or its successor. Pop up and back down with an almighty slam inside of fifteen minutes.
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